


The Five (or More) NPCs You Meet In Heaven

by cookie_rock



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Earthborn (Mass Effect), Everybody Dies, F/M, Fluff, Post-Canon, Post-Mass Effect 3, Self-Indulgent, Working Out My Feelings Through Fic, forgive me jenkins I didn't mean to forget you, there is no plot just the author trying to feel happiness again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:41:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22357348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cookie_rock/pseuds/cookie_rock
Summary: Jane Shepard wakes up dead.Then things get better.
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	The Five (or More) NPCs You Meet In Heaven

**Author's Note:**

> Many years ago, I finished Mass Effect 3 around 2:30 in the morning. I cried myself to sleep. The next morning I went to Wendy's, consumed an ENORMOUS Frosty, and wrote this to try and unbreak my heart.

The first thing Jane Shepard became aware of was…awareness. As the Crucible took her DNA and spread it to the cosmos, or whatever it was doing (frankly her memories of the explanation were somewhat fuzzy), the last things she thought about before losing consciousness—before she _died—_ was Kaidan. And then how funny it was when Horatio fell off his hamster wheel. And then there was a blissful, restful nothingness very much like sleep. Just like the last time she died.

But now her chest rose and fell with breath. Her heart beat steadily, evenly. There was no pain, no fatigue, no vague but persistent feeling of cybernetics. She took a deep experimental breath, held it, let it out, and then she opened her eyes.

“Easy, Skipper. It can be a little disorienting at first.”

Shepard sat up so fast she might have made herself dizzy in any other circumstance. “Ash!” she cried, joy overcoming the small pang of resignation in the back of her mind as she accepted she was dead for real this time. She threw her arms around her and they embraced for what felt like a long time.

“’Bout time you woke up,” Ashley said when they parted. Her face was split with a huge grin, and she chucked Shepard affectionately on the shoulder. “How you feeling?’

“Good. Great. Better than I’ve felt in a long time, to be honest.”

“That’ll happen. You ready to stand up?”

They were sitting on a nondescript white floor in a nondescript white room whose walls and ceiling Shepard couldn’t see. Ashley clambered to her feet and extended a hand to help Shepard do likewise. Her limbs felt strong and agile, and she took a minute to look over herself. Some of her scars were still there, but not all of them. The ones from the Lazarus Project seemed to be missing. “Self-projection,” Ashley said, as if reading her mind. “How you see yourself is how you appear here.”

“Speaking of which,” Shepard said, letting her hands fall to her sides, “where is here?”

“This place I call the inbox,” Ashley said with a shrug. “The rest is this way.”

“There’s more?”

“You didn’t think this was the entirety of Heaven, did you?”

“So this is Heaven?”

“Far as I can tell. Come on, I can explain everything later; I had to fight tooth and nail to be the one to come get you, and the others are probably getting impatient.”

The others. Shepard let out a breath and felt her lips curve up into a smile. “Tooth and nail, huh?”

“I argued that I had been longest without seeing you,” Ashley said, and Shepard winced.

“Ash--”

“Don’t, Commander. I’ve had a lot of time to think up here, and I still don’t regret a thing.” Ashley looked very serious as she said it, but then her face split into a grin again. “Although it took you and the LT long enough to find comfort in each other. I was really worried for a bit there.”

“Were you spying on us?”

“Looking down in love, let’s say. Seriously, though, a lot of people are waiting for you. Let’s go, Skipper.” She started off, but Shepard grabbed her arm to stop her.

“Ash. Look. We’re dead, ok? _Please_ call me Jane.”

Ashley’s laughter rang out free and clear over the strange white expanse in which they found themselves. “Ok, ok,” she said, holding up her hands in surrender. “Let’s go, _Jane_. We’ve got a lot of people to see.”

As they walked, she looped her arm through Shepard’s, and Shepard was reminded of Liara—she’d certainly never expected to become such close friends with her, or with the Shadow Broker, much less both in one package. She hadn’t expected that of Ash, either, and yet here they were. The memory held no pain; only a small sweet anticipation of seeing Liara again soon. Relatively speaking. Like thinking of Christmas in July.

The two women entered the gates arm-in-arm, and Shepard was surprised as hell _(hah!_ she had to choke back a burst of laughter at this) to realize they were now in Apollo’s Café. “A café? Heaven is a café?”

“Yeah, well, this part of it is,” Ash said with a shrug, “it was the only spot we could all agree on.”

“How did you--”

“I’m still not clear on the specifics, Sk—Jane, just go with it.”

There was a huge round table to one side of the café, covered in more food than seemed necessary, and seated around it…her heart leapt in her chest. Mordin, holding a baby Krogan in his lap and making her giggle with the finger puppets he seemed to have made out of napkins. Thane, laying on a bench with his head in the lap of a female Drell who must be Irikah. She raised her hand and waved gracefully, and Shepard, as she waved back, realized that she had never seen Thane smile like that. Legion, comparing omintools with Kal'Reegar. Anderson, next to a man who had the same nose as Shepard (“We’re still waiting for your mom,” Ash said softly, and Shepard knew a moment of pure wonderment). Men and women she recognized from Torfan (not all of them, but some). And near them, talking and laughing amongst themselves, a group of kids she had never thought she’d see again—Ace, Rook, Lickety Split, Skittles, and Bobbin, all friends from her days with the Reds, when they were all just kids looking to protect each other. Skittles tossed a handful of confetti into the air and yelled “Hi, Twitchy! Bet you didn’t think you’d see me again!” and then elbowed Ace, beside her, who remembered his confetti and tossed it into the air as well.

And Kaidan. Shepard knew a moment of sadness, but only a small one, as her selfish joy was a little too much to overcome. He smiled, brilliantly, and got up and came to them. Ashley let her go and stood by as Shepard and Kaidan embraced. “Oh, Kaidan,” Shepard said wistfully, pressing her forehead against his (he smelled the same, and she didn’t realize how much she’d been worried that no one would smell like themselves in the afterlife). “What happened?”

“Didn’t quite make it back,” he said with a shrug. “Took my leg clean off. I bled out almost before I realized what was going on.”

“Garrus?”

“Fine. Knocked out cold, which turned out to be a good thing. He made it back to Tali,” he added, and Shepard beamed.

“I’m not sorry you’re here, but…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. This way I can introduce you to my parents a little sooner.” He kissed her then, a long sweet kiss that was everything and nothing like their last kiss on Earth.

When it was over, Shepard glanced over his shoulder. Ash was talking to Skittles, laughing as they picked confetti out of Anderson’s hair, and Shepard put on her Commander voice one last time. “Sergeant Williams!” she barked, and Ashley jumped. “Get over here.” Ashley scurried over, looking chagrined, but Shepard couldn’t keep up the face for long, and as she pulled Ashley into the hug with Kaidan, pleased beyond words to have both of them in one space again, she giggled.

“I thought we were past the chain of command now that we’re all dead,” Ashley said, adding “ _Twitchy_ ,” with an elbow in Shepard’s ribs.

“That was for old time’s sake,” Shepard said, and as Ashley snorted and Kaidan laughed, she leaned her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes, and was content.


End file.
